Chicago, Illinois-headquartered Conagra Brands has named Noelle O’Mara as executive vice president of new platforms and acquisitions, effective May 6. Charged with responsibility for identifying and scaling new organic growth platforms and acquisitions, her work will span strategy, product innovation, commercialization, synergy capture, and in-market execution.
“Noelle’s leadership and track record of delivering results will be instrumental in advancing Conagra’s ambition to further scale emerging brands while delivering an ambitious innovation and growth strategy,” said Sean Connolly, the food company’s president and chief executive officer.
With over 20 years of experience in the CPG industry, O’Mara is a performance driven leader who has a proven track record of growing businesses, building capabilities, and creating high performing teams. Prior to being hired by Conagra, she served as group president for prepared foods at Tyson Foods and was responsible for its $10 billion prepared foods business unit, including manufacturing facilities and over 19,000 employees. In this role she drove record growth and was also responsible for spearheading enterprise innovation and brand building with leadership of marketing communication and design, insights and analytics, innovation, culinary, and research and development.
Before joining Tyson, O’Marra held senior level general manager positions at Kraft Foods where her marketing and innovation impacts led to industry awards including Chicago Crains “40 under 40” recognition.
“I’m excited and humbled to join the incredible team at Conagra Brands, and look forward to building upon the company’s success and fueling continued growth as we further our consumer driven portfolio,” said O’Marra, who is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business.
Among Conagra’s well known retail frozen ready meal and entree brands are Birds Eye, Healthy Choice, Marie Callender’s, Gardein, Van de Kamp’s, Hungry Man, Banquet and Frontera.
